Matthew
24:3-4
"And
as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples (the
twelve) came unto him privately, saying. Tell us, when shall
these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the
end of the world (the end of this age be). And
Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you
(the
Messiah was the end of that age as promised, He was sitting with
them, just as the kingdom was indeed nigh (among, and could be in)
them)."
What
does that tell you? What is a sign of the end times! The world is
going to be inundated with deceptions and a gospel of anti-christ. And we know the world has to
be made ready for the revealing of man of sin (the false prophet metaphoricaly a body of
ferocious,
savagery of sin made up of those people held in this body, just as Jesus has a Body of His metaphorical speaking, could it also be possable that the anti-christ is composed of those who resist Christ [the Body of Truth and Grace] by their doctrines and the body of traditions of demons and men), the global leaders (a composite of the false prophet and the anti-christ)
that are already on the scene, but remains veiled and limited in power by
that veil and I feel we’re getting closer and closer to that day of their unvailing.
So consequently in order to get the world ready for them, Satan is
deceiving the many (hundreds of millions) so that they’ll be ready
for them with open arms. But you see, we are to know better. We’re
not to fall into the trap, we’re not to be ready for the men of
sin, but rather we’re to ready for the Head of the Body at His soon
return, when God sounds the alarm with His trumpet blast. For me
this could quite possibly with His own Voice as a loud shout, which
has sounded like a clap of thunder for some people.
Colossians
2:8a
"Beware
lest any man spoil you through philosophy (theology
or rather theosophy, of mans ideology)…"
That
is the thoughts and mind of highly educated men. I’ve got nothing
against education, but we're going to look at it the way the
Scriptures does. When educated men get puffed up and feel that their
thoughts (vain imaginations) and their own idea (opinions, emotions and
ideology) supersedes the Scriptures, then we have to get our hackles
up and say, now listen we’re not going to go by the intellectuals
idealism or ideology of men’s philosophy. Why? Because scripture tells us that the hiden spirit behide it all is the devil. This is most obvious when
we look to what is happening in Asai these days and the one religion
of man that stands out there. And how it measures up with Revelation
chapter 6:5 and its spread outward to the far corners of the world.
Which its goal.
Colossians
2:8b
"…and
vain deceit, after the tradition of men,…"
You’d
be surprise how many times I've asked pastor's a particular thing
that they may not agree with me on. I’ll just ask them to show me
in the Scripture, "Why you do what you do", and they
can’t.! "Then why do you do it?" And after a blank stare
of about 30 seconds here it comes, "tradition." And
oh how Paul hated the word. You say, "Where do you get that?"
Back up a few pages to Galatians chapter 1. And of course Galatians
chapter 1 and 2 is a recap of course of his early ministry as a
Hebrew Pharisee bound by Judaism and all of its trappings. Chapter 1
is his conversion on the road to Damascus, and he’s given us a
brief glimpse of his background.
Galatians
1:11-13
"But
I certify you, brethren, that the (this)
gospel which was preached of me is not after man (he’s not
following philosophy of man that he was brought up in). For
I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it (through
the sufficiency of man), but by the revelation of
Jesus Christ (now that’s the mystery, again that he
referres to in Romans 16:25). For ye have heard of my
conversation (manner of living) in time past in the
Jew’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church (the
assembly) of God, and wasted it:"
In
other words those Jewish believers who had embraced Jesus of Nazareth
as the Messiah for their salvation, had come aside out of the main
stream of Judaism, although they still kept temple worship. They
had believed that Jesus was their Messiah, and had repented and were
baptized in water as was required by Peter’s gospel and
circumcision.
Galatians
1:11-13
"But
I certify you, brethren, that the (this)
gospel which was preached of me is not after man (he’s not
following philosophy of man that he was brought up in). For
I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it (through
the sufficiency of man), but by the revelation of
Jesus Christ (now that’s the mystery, again that he
referres to in Romans 16:25.). For ye have heard of my
conversation (manner of living) in time past in the
Jew’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church (the
assembly) of God, and wasted it:"
In
other words those Jewish believers who had embraced Jesus of Nazareth
as the Messiah for their salvation, had come aside out of the main
stream of Judaism, although they still kept temple worship. They
had believed that Jesus was the Messiah, and had repented and were
baptized in water as was required by Peter’s gospel and
circumcision. For
had not the risen LORD asked Saul of Tarsus, "why
are you persecuting Me in Acts 9:4?" These Jewish believers were now congregating on
their own, and recognizing that Jesus was in deed the Messiah /
Christ. Alright, that’s the people then that the Apostle Paul just
ravished, because he thought they were imposters, barbarians and
heretics. But that’s not why we came here.
Galatians
1:14
"And
profited in the Jews’ religion above many my equals in mine own
nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my
fathers."
We
want to remember and we’ll see this a little more clearly as we
come along in our study. The Judaism of Christ’s day was a far cry
from the original ingratiated by Moses and the tabernacle worship in
the wilderness. Well what had happened? The Rabbi’s, bless their
hearts would sit there by the days and hours and would be examining
all these concepts of the Torah, and like today they would set up a
commentary of what it in their limited understanding really meant.
Well after all the Rabbi’s had made these commentaries, of Judaism by
what I’ve been able to put together by the time of Jesus had some
613 rules. I'm going to be commentating on that again when we get to
the verse that this Law and these rules have been crucified. I might interject what Paul states in Philippians 3:7 where he says that he now counts all that he had known before as worthless in learning Christ, and count them all as dune and a loss to him. For now he strieves to know Christ through His love now restored within Paul. But
nevertheless, that was the traditions of the fathers that Saul of
Tarsus had been steeped in. I dare say, he knew all 613 forward and
backwards. He just knew them, and it was part and parcel of him.
There has to be a word of caution because God has a law that
supersedes all Laws and its not to be confused with the Levitical Law
or even the Ten Commandments. As they remain a code of moral conduct
good for all men every where. For His law means this: both His Will
and His Word of Grace, Truth and Love, Christ, for He is our law, He alone never changes nor will He,
He is the absolute of Scripture. For they reveal Christ in His
fulness, when understand as they are meant to be.
I'm
seeing the same thing today, when people are steeped in some false
cults for a lifetime, maybe 40 to 70 years, and then they begin to see,
hear and understand the Truth, but is it easy? No! It’s never easy
to give up traditions. It’s a battle to pull away from it, and every
time they make a step forward, that old pull of tradition (sin and
darkness) draws them back. This is our struggle of the flesh, the
stronghold of Satan. Well this is what Paul knew it was like to follow the
traditions of men. So even for us today, we have to be constantly
be aware, "Are you just simply following what grandpa or Mom believed?"
What if grandpa and Mom are in Hell? Are you going to follow them there? And
that’s what we have to realize. Just because grandpa or Mom could quote
Scripture, that doesn’t mean that they had the Truth of the Word of
God. I've known many a man who could quote scripture but they had not
the Spirit in them (Oh, they did indeed have a spirit but it was NOT of God) because all they did was quote the letter and we
all know and should by now understand that the only thing the letter
does is to kill. It judges us as being guilty all the time at every
turn when it is taken in literally. That's how we can tell if the one
speaking has the Spirit or just has a spirit. The Holy Spirit causes
us to discern (judge) the evil from the good and truth as the ripe
fruit of the good fig-tree. The evil fig-tree only knows worthless
deeds and empty words, the words of the tree of knowledge of good and
evil. The tree that Adam had been warned NOT to eat of.
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